Although it's been previously reported on the unsatisfactory revenue of Finnair in the Asian market, as Finnair suffered losses in the first quarter of 2019, and some Asian routes did not turn into profit.
It is expected the operation between Helsinki and Chongqing will be cancelled this October. However, these seem to be unable to stop Finnair's enthusiasm and long-term interests for the Asian market, and still regard this region as the core of future growth.
According to media reports recently, Topi Manner, the newly appointed Finnair CEO, said that thanks to Finland's favorable geographical position, Finnair can provide very efficient and convenient flights from Europe to China and other destinations in Asia; and these routes also contributed a large portion of passenger revenue to Finnair. Although there are some trade tensions and some unfavorable factors for the slowdown of growth in some economies this year, Finnair has seen some signs of a rebound in demand in the near future, and the Japanese market has performed well, which is in line with some recent macro indicators. A positive recovery signal is consistent.
In addition, Robert Öhrnberg, General Manager of Finnair Greater China, also revealed in an interview with the Civil Aviation Resource Network reporter in Beijing late last month that China has always been one of the most important global markets for Finnair and will be rooted and invested in it for a long time. We are willing to work with all parties to explore and dig deep into this market with an open attitude.
In fact, a series of recent actions by Finnair in the Asian market are enough to confirm the "Asia-centrism" of the above executives.
Earlier, Finnair publicly announced that in order to increase the capacity of the Beijing route, starting from November 3 this year, it will open a flight to and from Beijing Daxing International Airport (IATA code: PKX), which Finnair will operates three flights a week on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday, operated by the Airbus A330 widebody aircraft. In addition to the current daily flights operated to and from Beijing Capital International Airport, the number of flights from Finnair to Beijing will increase to 10 flights per week. Finnair has thus become the first foreign airline to announce the opening of the flight service of Beijing Daxing International Airport.
At the same time, Finnair also announced that it will open flights to Busan, South Korea in the summer of 2020, and will become the first and only airline to connect between Busan and Europe. According to plan, starting on March 30 next year, Finnair will use the new Airbus A350 wide-body aircraft to operate round-trip flights between Helsinki and Busan on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
In this regard, Finnish Chief Commercial Officer Ole Orver commented: "We are very happy to be the first European airline operating in Busan, which is a good complement to our vital Asian network. Korea is also our largest market in the world. One of which we have been operating for 11 years. Finnair is pleased to offer a new destination for our travellers and continue to grow in Asia."
It is understood that Busan will be the 20th destination of Finnair's network in Asia.
Of course, in addition to striving to build and consolidate the route network in Asia, Finnair has fully relied on the advantages of other partners to jointly develop the market and is an indispensable part of its strategic development in Asia. In fact, Finnair has also worked hard in this area recently and has reached a lot of cooperation.
According to the public information collected by the Civil Aviation Resource Network, in June this year, Finnair opened code-sharing cooperation with China Southern Airlines (China Southern Airlines) and Juneyao Airlines. In the same month, Finnair also cooperated with Juneyao Airlines to start the frequent flyer program cooperation.
The code-sharing cooperation between Finnair and China Southern Airlines...
